


Witness

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-07
Updated: 2012-03-07
Packaged: 2017-11-01 14:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From a stairwell five hundred meters away, with a rifle in hand, Sebastian Moran watches. </p>
<p>The end of "The Reichenbach Fall" from Moran's point of view</p>
<p>Kind of one-sided Moran/Jim, if you squint and look at it sideways. Honestly, it's more Gen than anything else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

> In my head-canon Sebastian Moran was the sniper in the stairwell watching John. He's also the one Jim trusted to relay his orders to the other gunmen.

From a stairwell 500 meters away, through the scope of his Accuracy International L96A1* sniper rifle, he watches Jim put the gun in his mouth and all he can think is _fucknoyouidiotjimdon’t_. Then Jim is down with his brain, his beautifully malicious mind, splattered on the rooftop of St Bart’s. It takes all of Sebastian Moran’s self-control, all of his faith in Jim and his plans, not to put a bullet in Sherlock Holmes. It would be so easy. He has a clean line of sight to the rooftop, the wind is minimal, and there is no cover to speak of. Just the twitch of his index finger and it would all be over.

He checks himself, moves his finger off the trigger, and shifts his attention to the GPS signal that is tracing John Watson’s cell phone. He’s close and Moran knows his orders. Jim didn’t just want Sherlock Holmes dead, he wanted him broken and shattered beyond repair. So Moran waits, watches as Holmes paces the rooftop, agitated, goes to the edge, looks down, and looks back at Jim’s body. Moran doesn’t bother to hide the vicious grin that crosses his face. ‘He’s got you, you prick,’ he thinks. ‘Jim beat you and now you have no choice.’

Ah, and here’s Dr. Watson now, climbing out of the cab and approaching the building from the South as he always did. Moran might have some measure of sympathy for the poor bastard, if he hadn’t threatened to blow up Jim with the Semtex vest, that is. Then again, he would have done the same if their positions had been reversed. If Jim had asked him, Moran would have gladly died for him, for his great Game.

He and Watson are the same, Moran thinks. Two men of action and violence caught up in the whirlwinds of adventure and insanity that are their mad geniuses. Even with that parallel in mind, Moran will not hesitate to put the bullet through Dr. Watson. Especially now, with Sherlock Holmes looking down on him from the rooftop. That would be ideal. He can imagine the expression on Holmes’s face when the good doctor goes down. A small entry wound, no bigger than a coin, on his forehead. The exit wound, the size of a grapefruit, would leave his brains reduced to splattered gore on the pavement. Or maybe he would go for the hat trick and place the bullet four centimeters below the scar on the doctor’s left shoulder, straight through his heart. Holmes’s shock would be delicious, and then he would realize that two other people who called him friend would meet a similar end. The cracks that Jim made in Holmes’s psyche would shatter into miniscule shards and Moran would see it all.

Moran is professionally annoyed that they had to go with the Detective Inspector. He’d wanted to go for the brother, but Jim’s perverse sense of vengeance, and their inability to get near the bastard, prevented it. Jim had said that Mycroft Holmes was in the government. He neglected to mention that he was the government. Maybe if Moran had more time, six months at the least, he would’ve been able to manage it, but there wasn’t time so they had to settle for the cop. And anyway, Jim had just laughed when he suggested it. ‘Oh no,’ he’d said, a wicked grin on his lips. ‘I want to see the Ice Man crack.’ He would never get to see it, but that was all right. Moran would see. Later, when he got to Hell, he would tell Jim all about it.

He watches Sherlock Holmes speak into the cell phone and John Watson’s heart is breaking. He can see the expression clearly through his scope and it makes him laugh. Jim was brilliant, Jim had known it would come down to this and even in death he had won. Although Moran hopes (how he hopes) that Holmes won’t do it. That Holmes will step back from the edge and decide that his own life is worth more to him than any one else. And then, after the doctor, the detective inspector, and the landlady are dead, then he can hunt down Sherlock Holmes. Hunt him down and make him scream before he kills him.

But it’s not to be. Holmes tosses the phone back and jumps. Moran watches the descent, the flailing black shadow plummets to the pavement. There is a linen truck in the way and he does not see the splatter of brains on the sidewalk. The truck pulls aways and Sherlock Holmes lies like a broken bird, blood pooling on the concrete. He looks to Dr. Watson and the horror, the disbelief, is palpable enough to be felt 500 meters away and three stories up. There is shocked motion and people rushing on the street. Moran wishes there was more blood, that the consulting detective had splattered on the pavement the same way Jim’s brains are splattered on the rooftop. A pity that six stories up isn’t high enough for that kind of damage.

He pulls the rifle back into the window, disassembles it with the ease of decades of practice, and slips it back into the case. As he descends the stairs he sends out the order for the others to stand down. It is over.

**Author's Note:**

> Accuracy International L96A1*- According to "Ultimate Special Forces" by Hugh McManners, this is a sniper rifle used by the British Army. Assuming Col. Moran was in the British Army, it seems likely that this is the rifle he would be familiar with.


End file.
